Thursday, March 12, 2009

I got the typical response from Mr. Roeten. He talks about another post, but he ends with

"I'll give you one more chance. No response tells me what I need to know."

I love the phrase "what I need to know", I guess my religious beliefs are of some critical importance to him.

I did respond:

"Hey Kev,

Obviously you fail to get the point, so let me be as clear as possible. What does anyone's belief system have to do with the discussion at hand? Your belief system shouldn't matter either, but you seem to be unable to support your statements without it. That should tell you more about yourself than I ever could.

So let me be frank: I did not answer your question for three reasons, (1) You never asked one, you made an assumption and ran with it, (2) it really is none of your business -- but I probably would have answered if you had bothered to ask, and (3) it is not germane to the conversation. The very fact you have to introduce it into the conversation means you have no credible arguments."

But based on his posts so far, I bet he puts me on his ignore list and fully justifies it to himself in some weird way. Probably continue his assumptions and figure I am beyond saving.

One of the others he accused did respond in his own way. Paul Burnett's response to Kev:

Kevin wrote: "Why don't you just say it if it's true?"

"I believe in God." So there. But my God may not be your God. Does your God have blue eyes or brown? Long flowing white hair or short black hair? Bearded or beardless? Was man made in His image? Or was woman made in Her image? (You can't have it both ways, after all. Which one is true? (Thereby making the other false?) Think about it.)

I believe in the God the Founding Fathers believed in - the God of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Paine.

Which God do you believe in?

And what does Kev do? You are really going to love this:

Mr. Burnett,

I appreciate you biting the bullet. Evidently you don't realize there can only be one God. Woman and man were made in God's image. It says image, not total duplicate. Therefore both sexes apply. Please don't be so two-dimensional in your thinking. Maybe that's how you believe in evolution. If you really believe in a God, you would know that He would have a hand in the making of woman and man.

Hence, Intelligent Design. I personally don't even think you know what God many of the Founding Fathers believed in. The God I believe in died and was raised from the dead 2000 years ago. That's the God most of the Founding Fathers believed in.

He starts preaching! He tries to 'correct' Paul to be more in line with his own belief system. How incredible! The sheer arrogance of the man. First he makes an unjustifiable assumption, and then when he gets his question answered, starts preaching!

I think he also needs a history lesson. George Washington was a baptized member of the Church of England, which is considered both Angelical and Catholic. John Adams was a Congregationalist and later a Unitarian. Thomas Jefferson was the most interesting of all. According to two of his many Biographers:

"First, that the Christianity of the churches was unreasonable, therefore unbelievable, but that stripped of priestly mystery, ritual, and dogma, reinterpreted in the light of historical evidence and human experience, and substituting the Newtonian cosmology for the discredited Biblical one, Christianity could be conformed to reason. Second, morality required no divine sanction or inspiration, no appeal beyond reason and nature, perhaps not even the hope of heaven or the fear of hell; and so the whole edifice of Christian revelation came tumbling to the ground."

And that in 1803 Jefferson "did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but he had high esteem for Jesus's moral teachings."

Now I am not saying that all this is perfect information, I haven't done enough research to be sure. But his blanket statement to Paul: "That's the God most of the Founding Fathers believed in." is pretty much meaningless.

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This blog is more a way for me to clarify my own thinking and opinions more than for any other purpose. I like writing things down, having links to source material, and offering my own $.02. I find a blog let's me do that. I encourage comments and emails from any who wish to do so. I am not shy, as you might have noticed, and I am also not afraid of a dissenting view. I might disagree with you, but I will defend your right to say what you think as well as I expect the same respect!

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